1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technology for predicting weather by using a weather prediction model, and specifically relates to deciding parameters to be used in the weather prediction model.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-90888 discloses use of a numerical model for predicting weather. In this approach, various meteorological data are input into the numerical model, as initial values, to simulate certain arithmetic results, and predict weather at certain time in future from the arithmetic results.
The numerical prediction includes an ensemble forecast for obtaining better results. In the ensemble forecast, an average of the arithmetic results (hereinafter, members) obtained at various stages in calculated and the average is used to predict weather.
However, conventionally, because all of the assigned initial values are used in the calculation of the arithmetic results, the calculation takes extremely long time and requires high-capacity computing facilities. Moreover, some of the initial parameters can be inaccurate so that the members relating to those inaccurate initial parameters also become inaccurate thereby making the ensemble forecast inaccurate.